The present invention relates to document feeders of the recirculating type for automatically feeding a plurality of documents stored on a document tray one after another to the document table ofo a copying machine and returning the documents to the document tray.
A known example of such document feeder is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,169,074. This document feeder successively feeds a plurality of documents stored on a tray to the document table (exposure position) of a copying machine, and returns the documents to the tray after the documents are copied by operating the copying machine.
With the document feeder of the recirculating type as noted above, it is necessary to divide the documents on the tray into those already copied and those not copied yet.
According to Japanese Patent Publication Kokai No. 58-224931, such a division is effected by a lever placed on documents to be copied and receiving copied documents, whereby the copied documents thereon are held apart from the documents to be copied. When all of the documents to be copied are exhausted, this lever actuates a counter to indicate that one set of documents has been copied, and is placed back on a next set of documents by a crank mechanism.
In Japanese Patent Publication Kokai No. 60-61767, a lever device is disclosed for use with a copying machine having a duplex copying function. The lever device is operable to provide a division between plural sets of copying paper on an intermediate tray for temporarily storing the copying paper. This lever device is movable to rest on copying paper to be divided, by a motor specially provided for that purpose.
The known sheet feeders noted above require the motor or crank arm and an associated drive shaft and the like for actuating the lever to pivot back onto the top of the plurality of sheets returned to the document tray. It is desirable to achieve the dividing function without such a mechanical or electric device.